1. |
Pauper's Son
04:44
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PAUPER’S SON
“Sheep devoured the human flesh”
Handed down by good King Death
Who took away the strongest serfs
And buried them deep beneath the earth
Labourers so left the land
And those remaining did command
For their good work a higher fee
From landowner and legatee
Engrossers knew their further wrath
Would see their hirelings, stick and cloth,
Take their sweat to higher ground
For pennies, shillings, English pounds.
And so, in 1381
They took their tools and set upon
The house of he who forced their plight
To earnestly assert their rights
Away, away, you pauper’s son
Take to your heels and run, run, run
You tax our land, you tax our corn
Away, away you pauper’s son
The damage caused was fifty pounds
But the villein’s court it handed down
Sentences so hesitant
Recipients thought them Heaven sent
The reins of power were switched around
As the poll collector licked his wounds
He’d pushed the people to the brim
Until the people turned on him
Away, away, you pauper’s son
Take to your heels and run, run, run
You tax our land, you tax our corn
Away, away you pauper’s son
Away, away, you pauper’s son
Take to your heels and run, run, run
You tax our land, you tax our corn
Away, away you pauper’s son
© Copyright NIGHTSONG 2020. All rights reserved.
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2. |
Fantasy
00:40
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3. |
The Bridge
04:53
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THE BRIDGE
The Legions’ legacy of metal and stone
Crossed river and beck in the line of a crow
O’er hilltops, through forest, standing clear of the mire
Fast moving north until forced to retire
The Crown and its Council staked out their view
To carve up the land for their vassals and chiefs
With the void in between falling into decline
Impassable tracks by rain or high tide
Midsummer to Fall. Season for thieves
Breakneck bivouacs of branches and leaves
For to prey on the herdsmen, croppers and kind
As livestock and harvests came into their prime
As livestock and harvests came into their prime
Hastening flight from country to town
Gone in an instant not to be found
But this day was different. Stopped at the ford
To arrive on the day that the bridge came down
To arrive on the day that the bridge came down
The serfs and the peasants picked up the pieces
And scavenged the county for cobnuts and berries
To wait for the day of the rustlers’ return
Now their route of escape had been slowed by the surge
Like the fall of the moon and the rise of the sun
The scoundrels returned when the harvest was done
And the wary laid waiting, reinforced by their kin
To menace the thieves to repent of their sins
To menace the thieves to repent of their sins
Their flight so impeded from country to town
Stocks holding fast the new tenants they’d found
This day victorious for the villagers stand
In praise of the day that the bridge came down
In praise of the day that the bridge came down
Copyright NIGHTSONG 2020. All rights reserved.
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4. |
St. Mary Magdalen
04:57
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SAINT MARY MAGDALEN
Herding the goats and the flocks on their holdings
Gathering the fruit of the land
They laboured in peace, and spoke to the silence
Cursed from their feet to their hands
Cast from their homes, cast from their houses
To a place half way to Heaven’s gate
People of God but without any order
Reconciled to their fate
The people of St. Mary Magdalene
The people of St. Mary Magdalene
The people of St. Mary Magdalene
Begging for alms, praying for souls
Tilling and hoeing the soil.
Lesions and bruises, singing His praises
As they went about their toil
Out where the thoroughfares crossed their direction
Away from the villagers’ gaze
This was their refuge, this was their penance
Purgatory for the rest of their days
The people of St. Mary Magdalene
The people of St. Mary Magdalene
The people of St. Mary Magdalene
The people of St. Mary Magdalene
The people of St. Mary Magdalene
The people of St. Mary Magdalene
© John Reed NIGHTSONG 2020. All rights reserved.
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5. |
Selion
00:48
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6. |
The Spell
03:56
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The Spell
Before the Essenes, there were we.
The gift came down from my Mother to me.
A guardian I was of sound
To sing the Earth into the clouds.
Who will hold you when you sleep?
In the vale of death, your heart to keep?
Who will mend the ills you fall?
The healing balm remembers all.
I could make my throat, like a butterfly.
I could pierce the heart like an arrow in flame.
I’m earth and wind and fire and rain.
Yeah they were afraid of the folk like me
A witch they said would burn at sea
They were afraid of the folk like me
But the sea is my mother
and she will carry me
from one life to another
I keep coming back
(The healers, the seers, the handlers of truth)
©️ Copyright NIGHTSONG 2020. All rights reserved.
Lyrics © Jo Beth Young 2020
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7. |
Hireling
00:30
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8. |
Wharram
05:21
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WHARRAM
It’s half a thousand years or more
Since coulter disc and share did score
Furrows in the verdant earth
For the wealth of lords and the lives of serfs
Heaps and mounds are all we found
Amid the surly cattle crowd
Grazing there amid the ruins
Where once good folk had farmed the land
One of Britain’s three thousand
Villages returned to land
Basin valley in the Wolds
They didn’t return to Wharram
They didn’t return to Wharram
Ritual cuts on human bones
To halt the return of the dead and their ghosts
Assured the Scandinavians
Children, babies women, men
Lagmann, Carli, Ketilbjorn
Held the land as the Normans swarmed
When the Percys ruled till the line was cut
The spouse of the heir by the plague was struck
Chorus
Hilton by the law of the crown
Took the land and levelled it down
Wealth derived from ewe and ram
Razed the strips of corn and grain
And with their land in confiscation
Good folk at the mercy of the Baron
But the Baron was cruel and brought to an end
Five hundred years of working the land
Chorus
© Copyright NIGHTSONG 2020. All rights reserved.
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9. |
Offoldfal
05:57
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OFFOLDFAL
Edmunds to Elmham, to the ‘Isle of Eels’
Causeways carried the harvest yield
That ‘The Great Heathen Army’ once plundered abroad
Till the fleets were held back by the gathering silt
Washed by waters, flooded by sea
Fertile expanse of Aethelthryth’s terrain,
Trackless bogs to a solitary place
Where the morning mists would silence the paddles
Carried by stealth past ollands and lakes
Ferrying wealth from husbands to abbeys
Or out to the vessels that wait on the tide
Portering cargoes from rights of the common
Farmers and chieftains, clergy and saints
Coveted earth of the dismal fen
Merchants and traders, boatmen and priests
Fearful of Holland’s disorderly men
Two pence a year by Martinmas
From every man with a house and a fire
For to cut of the turves and lay of the thatch
To graze of the pasture by the open sea
To catch of their share of the fish and the fowl
And to share of the land of the offoldfal
And the fog would roll in its defensive shroud
And settle the land where the corncrake calls
Conferring its refuge, mystery and peace
Selion and meadow to serve up their feast
While innocents cut at the peat and the furze
Falsified charters wrestled the deeds
Banking the marshes for profit and lords
‘Till widening skies put a crack in their armour
Two pence a year by Martinmas
From every man with a house and a fire
For to cut of the turves and lay of the thatch
To graze of the pasture by the open sea
To catch of their share of fish and fowl
And to share of the land of the offoldfal
© Copyright NIGHTSONG 2020. All rights reserved.
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10. |
Penance
00:58
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11. |
Bury Me Deep
04:42
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BURY ME DEEP
We’ve come to rely
On fragments of lives
To understand
The things that lie
Behind the way
We have become,
Have come to this
When’s said and done
Bury me deep
Bury me well
Bury me with my story to tell
Bury me deep
Bury the sound
Bury me deep beneath the ground
Buried shards
And silver coins
Artefacts
That were employed
To make the meals
Or store them well
Through Autumn storms
And Winter’s chill
Chorus
Centuries on
In the midst of a wood
They’ll stumble on
My neighbourhood
A discovery
A wonderment
A chance to piece
The jigsaw left
Chorus
© Copyright NIGHTSONG 2020. All rights reserved.
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12. |
Bivouac
00:45
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13. |
Rushlight
05:24
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RUSHLIGHT
There’s a beacon on the ridge
In a place that is silent
Take the path in the dark
That’s sprinkled with star light
Make for the ford
That’s burning by moonlight
Stumble through the forest
By the glow of the rushlight
The glow of the rushlight
The glow of the rushlight
Lords of the land
And ladies of twilight
Survey their domain
For the onset of sunlight
Catching the dew
As it falls from the leaves
Steer through the mist
As it hangs in the valley
The glow of the rushlight
The glow of the rushlight
The glow of the rushlight
The glow of the rushlight
Rest against the tree
As its roots gather round
Soak up the strength
Gifted from the ground
By hook or by crook
The journey resumes
By the light of the rush
And its tallow fumes
The glow of the rushlight
The glow of the rushlight
The glow of the rushlight
The glow of the rushlight
© Copyright NIGHTSONG 2020. All rights reserved.
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14. |
Flame
00:28
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15. |
The King's Feast
05:31
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THE KING’S FEAST
Call on the woodsman. Call on the bowyer
Burn the forest for its coal
Turn the shaft upon the woodlathe
Strike the forge to point the arrow
Pluck the arrow from its quiver
Slay the beast for the sport of kings
Pare the planks to build the table
Venison and ale to drink
Venison and ale to drink
Call on the wheelwright. Call on the cooper.
Heat the steel until it glows
Form the steel around the rim
Steam the wood to fit the tyre
Bear the ale from monastery to king
Pass the fowler at his trade
Rattling to its journey’s end
Venison and ale to drink
Venison and ale to drink
Venison and ale to drink
Venison and ale to drink
Venison and ale to drink
Venison and ale to drink
© Copyright NIGHTSONG 2020. All rights reserved.
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16. |
The Shroud
04:44
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SHROUD
The skin you were born with
Garments for your work
Best for your worship
The shroud that you die in
“Sweet Jesus, be not angry
I have neither rag nor cloth to fold thee in
I have nothing but a rag of a lap
Therefore, lay thy feet unto my breast
And keep from the cold.”
Bound to the home till worship or harvest
Spinning the hempcloth and linen for gowns
Candlelight threads till her poor fingers bled
On the carpet of rushes that lay on the ground
The skin you were born with
Garments for your work
Best for your worship
The shroud that you die in
The tunics of men sweated labour again
Next day their backs without scour or scald
The women at home, desirous of madder
Settled for plunket derived from the woad
Wimples for mothers, loose hair for whores
Long woollen dresses with aprons for chores
Ladies ride by in their crimson pride
Gentlemen alert by their side
The skin you were born with
Garments for your work
Best for your worship
The shroud that you die in
Then at twenty or thirty or forty at best
The desire of God’s will would lay her to rest
Lords and their servants gathered around
Respect her remains, wrapped in a shroud
The skin you were born with
Garments for your work
Best for your worship
The shroud that you die in
© Copyright NIGHTSONG 2020. All rights reserved.
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NIGHTSONG
Three creative minds with a collective interest in where we all come from and the lessons we can
learn.
Using history and the good spirits of humankind to inspire love, learning, and community, and to create music for the soul.
ALI KARIM
JOHN REED
JO BETH YOUNG
... more
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